The Turkish government has been a vocal critic of the Israeli genocide on the people of Gaza in 2008.

 

March 13, 2010 (Hamsayeh.Net) - The Turkish government once again recalled its ambassador from a country that voted in favour of labelling the mass killings of Armenians by Ottoman Turks during the First World War as genocide.

 

This time it was the Swedish parliament that voted in favour of the resolution following a similar move by Washington last week. Ankara never accepts the mass killings of Armenians as genocide. It says such a historical event did take place but not as many as some people claim to be one and half million who lost their lives.

 

Last week Ankara recalled its ambassador from Washington for consultations and a similar action against Sweden this week shows that Turkey is very much upset with those decisions. ‘We strongly condemn this resolution, which is made for political calculations; it does not correspond to the close friendship of our two nations.

 

We are recalling our ambassador for consultations,’ Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said in a statement, referring to the Swedish parliament vote as reported by Reuters. Turkey also cancelled a March 17 joint Turkey-Sweden meeting as sign of protest against the Swedish parliament decision. The West has recent months tried to pressure Turkey over the neighbouring Armenia.

 

The Turkish government has been a vocal critic of the Israeli genocide on the people of Gaza in 2008. The Turkish Prime Minister, Erdogan holding a press conference with the Israeli official Shimon Peres blamed the Israeli armed forces for committing genocide against Palestinians and dashed out of the conference in anger.